Late at night is when I think
And try to I clear my head
I often stay awake all night
Just laying in my bed

As soon as I get comfy
Thoughts start racing in
I start to question everything
and regret my every sin

At first the thoughts are gentle
Like what will I do tomorrow
But as time crawls by; they escalate
Till I'm drowning in my sorrow

I think of all my failures
Every detail of what I did wrong
After hours of reliving pain
I convince myself I don't belong

I suddenly feel isolated
and like the silence will never end
I feel like I will never escape
There's too much I just can't mend

I feel overpowered and worthless
Like I'll never do anything right
I hide till the world fades away
And I'm awoken by the light

I realize a new day has come
It's time to put on a brave face
I put those negative thoughts away
Until I return to this place

We were misfits
the neglected *******
of a backwards world
that rejected us
not because we were sick
demented or dangerous
but because we didn't prescribe
to a preconceived notion
of what a functioning citizen was.

Not rotten enough to spoil
behind the bars of a prison
just competent enough
to work menial jobs
and drown our sorrows
at the corner pub.

We swallowed this hard truth
the same way we drank our shots
with no chaser
and at times it burnt
maybe even made us tear up
but we never let it beat us
(too strong for that)

We were beautiful
resilient beasts
that could carry the weight
of the world upon our shoulders
and it was heavy
but we would tell ourselves
"doesn't every world need an atlas?"
so we went on holding up the sky
when no one asked it of us.

Dear J,
   I may be at a loss for words half the time, and the other half I might have too much to say, but I can almost always say this; I love you. I have felt fear and I have felt bravery and I have felt loss. I can look pictures of us and I can recall everything we did that day. I can listen to videos of you and I can tell what you felt. And I know that you didn't think I was paying attention, but I knew how you looked when you thought something was unfair. And I knew the look in your eyes when you saw the light just right in a sunset and you knew that nothing could ever be recreated quite like that. I felt the same way about you.
   Wherever you are, know that loving someone isn't a matter of feeling something or not feeling something. It's a matter of knowing what you're feeling and when you need to let go.
   I think that people know that letting go involves unfurling your fingers and watching something fall from a great height. It's the act of following that objects downward motion that gets to us. That once it meets the ground or whatever surface it is deemed to hit, it's gone. What was there is gone. And once you think about that you think of what could have been there. That one last touch, that one last feeling of bliss that comes with knowing that the moment you wake up the sun will be shining in rivulets through fingers that tangle in hair fresh off the pillow. It's sad to know that nothing like that will happen again.
   The sun won't shine the same way. Instead it may simply fall. It won't cascade, it won't flow over the edges of noses or smiling lips. It's the same way water may lose a stone from a riverbed and from there on after it doesn't run quite the same way. But another stone, another pebble will fall in place because replacement happens.
   I guess what I'm trying  to say, is that letting go is letting someone else take a spot. In order for something else to happen you have to let your joints move out of their grip and unfold from their hold on something that wasn't meant to be held by you anymore.
   Sometimes you have to let them land somewhere new.
I only hope that it's somewhere even more beautiful than before.
            Claire

I am a hopeless
romantic
with a terrible
fear of falling
in love.
-JRM

Kiss me once
upon the lips,
and speak to
me as if
my ears
are the most
important
you've ever
spoken to.
-JRM

It's not the fact that you are gone,
It's that the world
didn't stop
turning,

When mine did.